358 THE ADIRONDACK. 



were on equal footing. Although the sky was clear 

 and the woods were green, and the sunlight fell in gold- 

 en floods all over the surrounding heights, there was 

 no beauty in the scene. The inconceivable loneliness of 

 the place weighed on the spirits, and repressed all plea- 

 surable emotions. Perhaps I should have felt different 

 had not the guides worn such a lugubrious, melancholy 

 aspect. To see your guides in an untrodden wilder- 

 ness look dejected and worried, affects you as it does 

 to behold a serious expression on the face of the cap- 

 tain of a vessel at sea as he scans the heavens at night- 

 fall. Yet there was something amusing to me to see 

 such hardy woodsmen wear a funereal aspect, simply 

 because they had got off their familiar beat. 



As we rowed quietly along the little lake, scarce a 

 word was spoken by the guides, and I at length halloo- 

 ed to Charlie, who was ahead, to know where he was going 

 to camp, for it was full time to be making preparations 

 for supper. He mournfully replied he did not know, 

 and so we kept skirting along the base of a mountain until 

 at length we entered the passage to the other lake. 

 Shooting forth on to this, the same monotonous shores 

 met our gaze, but at the farther end, on a low, grassy 

 point, green as emerald, stood a noble deer ; his graceful 



